About

Bio (for conferences)

Tom Ridge is a programmer currently working for altodata on on various projects for the rail industry, using AWS technologies mostly (Lambda, CloudFormation, Aurora (PostgreSQL), SNS, SQS etc.) and Python.

Before that he worked for OCamlLabs/Tarides on various OCaml and blockchain projects. He has a special interest in filesystems and storage layers.

Prior to this he was a Senior Lecturer at the University of Leicester from 2009 to 2021. His background is in formal methods and theorem proving. His research has mainly focused on applications of formal methods to real-world systems.

He worked at Cambridge on the NetSem project giving a formal semantics to TCP/IP, and briefly on relaxed memory models. Recently he has worked on verified parsing. Currently he is working on a verified file system.

Timeline (education and employment)

  • 2023 - current, altodata
    Working for altodata, see above.

  • 2021 - 2023-03, OCamlLabs/Tarides
    Worked for OCamlLabs/Tarides on Irmin and related projects (blockchain, storage), for clients such as Tezos. This involved some interaction with nomadic labs.

  • 2009 - 2021, University of Leicester
    Joined the University of Leicester, Department of Computer Science, initially as Lecturer then promoted to Senior Lecturer.

  • 2005 - 2009, Research Associate, Cambridge
    Joined the University of Cambridge as a research associate in the Computer Lab, supervised by Peter Sewell. Research mostly on Netsem (TCP/IP formalization in HOL4) and weak memory models.

  • 2001 - 2005, PhD in Computer Science, LFCS, Edinburgh
    Obtained a PhD at the Laboratory for the Foundations of Computer Science (LFCS), Edinburgh University. I was supervised by Paul Jackson, and studied theorem proving (Isabelle/HOL and HOL Light).

  • 1999 - 2001, Programmer and Project manager, City of London
    I worked as a programmer and project manager in various companies in the City of London (main UK financial district).

  • 1998 - 1999, Diploma in Computer Science, Cambridge
    I took the Diploma in Computer Science (like a Master's degree), Trinity College, Cambridge.
    Graduated with Distinction, 2nd in year.
    I have a senior scholarship from Trinity College listed here which I only found out about many years after it was awarded.

  • 1995 - 1998, Mathematics degree, Trinity College, Cambridge
    Graduated with a 2.1.